As I have previously stated on my other blog, Contra O'Reilly, I am an agnostic. Although, me not belonging to any organized religion can also be attributed to the fact that I've never happened upon a church that I care for. Most of the "religions" out there focus on kindness toward your fellow man, forced charity, humility, and bullshit like that. Christianity, the dominant religion in American, has a prophet that said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of god".
Frankly I find it amazing that Republicans worship this god. I mean, clearly Jesus, the son of the god of envy, is more fitted to the Progressive ideology. Although today Progressives want to confiscate the wealth of productive Makers to distribute to lazy Takers. Jesus at least suggested that the rich man voluntarily give away his wealth so he could enter "heaven".
Progressives want to take that wealth under threat of force. Still, if the wealthy men do not give away their riches they will be denied entry into "heaven". (The fictional) Jesus said it, but Republicans (who do not think Jesus was fictional, even though he was) ignore it.
This is a major reason why I could never join an organized religion. The demonization of the wealthy producers is totally unacceptable to me. Instead of denying the superior wealthy entry into heaven, God should have told his son Jesus that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is poor to enter the kingdom of God. That is what should be written in that work of fiction known as the Christian Bible.
Because poor people do not deserve unearned rewards in the afterlife. Proof of this is their not earning any rewards in this life. I'm not saying I believe in an afterlife, which I do not, but if there was one and there were rewards to be enjoyed when a person gets there - poor people have clearly not earned them.
But rich people? They obviously have. For example, an extremely wealthy person named John D. Rockefeller a) Started His Career Working in a Small Wholesale Business Earning Less than $4 a Week, b) Through Hard Work, Vision, Tenacity, and Revolutionary Management, Eventually Presided Over One of the Most Successful Companies in Modern History, and c) Engaged in Some of the Most Staggering Levels of Philanthropy Imaginable.
Yet Progressive probably view him as a horrible person. Perhaps he should have gone into politics and passed a shitload of laws instead. Laws that would have made it even more difficult for an individual to achieve success. At least the Republicans got that right. They want to get rid of these laws that punish success.
A religion that doesn't punish success? Ayn Rand's Objectivism. That is a church that I might join... if Objectivists had churches, that is. Which they do not, given that Objectivists do not believe in the afterlife. But it could be thought of as a religion of the here and now, no?
In regards to the image below... this is the man I might say a prayer to before crawling under the covers at night. Correction - I actually have said a prayer to this god of a man. You know, just in case there is an afterlife. Being an agnostic I'm not sure. Jesus and his dad can stuff it. I am not at all interested in gaining entry into the "envy afterlife". But if John D. Rockefeller has taken his rightful place as a god? Well, sign me up for that afterlife! Because Rockefeller's "heaven" would be a meritocracy, which would shut out the lazy jealous Progressive Takers completely.
But Willis Hart? He would totally get in. Sure, I might not be ushered to the front of the line, but there would definitely be a table reserved for the Hartster, given the fact that I am far superior to the majority of you losers.
Byline: This superior commentary was authored by Willis "I Love Strawmen" Hart. Purveyor of worshipping wealthy people. LLIN-171.
In the most noteworthy passage of his self-portrait (first published in 1658), La Rochefoucauld certainly hits the mark when he warns all reasonable men against pity, when he advises them to leave it to those common people who need passions (because they are not directed by reason) to bring them to the point of helping the sufferer and intervening energetically in a misfortune. For pity, in his (and Plato's) judgment, weakens the soul. Of course one ought to express pity, but one ought to guard against having it; for unfortunate people are so stupid that they count the expression of pity as the greatest good on earth.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one can warn even more strongly against having pity for the unfortunate if one does not think of their need for pity as stupidity and intellectual deficiency, a kind of mental disorder resulting from their misfortune (this is how La Rochefoucauld seems to regard it), but rather as something quite different and more dubious. Observe how children weep and cry, so that they will be pitied, how they wait for the moment when their condition will be noticed. Or live among the ill and depressed, and question whether their eloquent laments and whimpering, the spectacle of their misfortune, is not basically aimed at hurting those present. The pity that the spectators then express consoles the weak and suffering, inasmuch as they see that, despite all their weakness, they still have at least one power: the power to hurt. When expressions of pity make the unfortunate man aware of this feeling of superiority, he gets a kind of pleasure from it; his self-image revives; he is still important enough to inflict pain on the world. Thus the thirst for pity is a thirst for self-enjoyment, and at the expense of one's fellow men. It reveals man in the complete inconsideration of his most intimate dear self, but not precisely in his "stupidity," as La Rochefoucauld thinks. In social dialogue, three-quarters of all questions and answers are framed in order to hurt the participants a little bit; this is why many men thirst after society so much: it gives them a feeling of their strength. In these countless, but very small doses, malevolence takes effect as one of life's powerful stimulants, just as goodwill, dispensed in the same way throughout the human world, is the perennially ready cure.
But will there be many people honest enough to admit that it is a pleasure to inflict pain? That not infrequently one amuses himself (and well) by offending other men (at least in his thoughts) and by shooting pellets of petty malice at them? Most people are too dishonest, and a few men are too good, to know anything about this source of shame. So they may try to deny that Prosper Merimée is right when he says, "Sachez aussi qu'il n'y a rien de plus commun que de faire le mal pour le plaisir de le faire." - Nietzsche, "Human, All too Human"